Sam Britton still doesn't know what hit him.

Considered a shoo-in to replace Councilman Paul Booth on City Council just a week ago, the former state representative from Madisonville was completely outmaneuvered by the green-and-blue forces of Laketa Cole.

Cole, who has never attended a church festival or community council meeting without an army of people wearing green-and-blue campaign T-shirts, never stopped campaigning for City Council after she came in a close 10th in 2001.

Britton counted on the support of council Democrats, whom he had always supported in the past. But as message slips piled up on Councilman John Cranley's desk, the Cole pile dwarfed the Britton pile. Cranley was considered the swing vote after he publicly switched his support for Britton to a neutral position.

Some Fourth Street business interests tried to lobby Councilmen Pat DeWine and Chris Monzel for Britton, only to find out that Republican votes don't count.

One Democrat said he knew the end was near when Britton rattled off a list of people who supported him. All of them had already called Democrats in support of Cole.

Britton insisted that forces beyond his control doomed his council bid.

"I was serious about the seat. No question about that," he said. "I don't feel out-hustled at all through this past week. I do feel that for various reasons, which I don't fully buy into, some of those who supported me to begin with no longer felt they could support me."

Those reasons included a perception by white Democrats that the African-American community was uniting behind Cole.

The turning point came when Councilman David Crowley, who had publicly supported Britton, asked Cole for a meeting. Crowley told her he was set on Britton. She said she understood, and then persistently gave him reasons to change his mind. "She passed the test," Crowley said.

All this left David Pepper, who was in Italy over the weekend for a family wedding, completely out of the loop. He returned Monday afternoon asking, "What happened to our interview process?"

He said he thinks Democrats should reconsider the process by which it appoints members to vacancies, but doesn't have a problem with Cole. He noted that she got 25,683 votes in the last election.

"Who can argue with that?" he said.

Vox populi: Last week, the Dayton City Commission gave up on a one-week experiment, modeled after Cincinnati City Council rules, to turn off the cable access cameras during the public speaking portion of the meeting.

Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin has called for the cameras to be turned back on while the commission sorts out rules for public comments, reports the Dayton Daily News.

Cincinnati's rule - established as the council's first official act in its 2001-2003 term - did have the effect of curbing the more outrageous behavior. But recently, the half-hour citizen forums have become increasingly bizarre.

At last week's City Council meeting, speakers included:

• A protester engaged in a high-volume harangue of Cranley, ending with a promise to protest the councilman's dreams when he sleeps at night.

• A boycotter dragging the American flag and demanding to know Mayor Charlie Luken's definition of the word "Semite."

• A man claiming the Central Intelligence Agency created AIDS in a secret lab from an Icelandic sheep virus to kill gay and African-American men - and who provided records from the U.S. Patent Office that he says prove it.

• A distraught woman who claimed that her neighbor's floodlights were keeping her awake at night, and demanding an ordinance to ban them.

• Former City Council candidate William Kirkland, who accused black council members of "worshipping white people."

Look for Mayor Luken to step up enforcement of the rules of decorum - and for more arrests disrupting public meetings - in the coming weeks.

Neighborhood watch: The question was halfway out of a reporter's mouth when Mayor Luken answered it: "David Pepper."

The question: "Have you given any thought to who will replace Paul Booth as chairman of the neighborhoods committee?"

Pepper, who is now vice chairman, said his agenda will be to implement his $2 million "Clean and Safe Neighborhood Fund" and to get City Council to meet outside City Hall more often.

His goal is to convince neighborhood leaders - some of whom are plotting to throw out the at-large City Council system and replace it with an old-style ward system - that the current City Council can be responsive to neighborhood needs.

City Hall reporter Gregory Korte can be reached at gkorte@enquirer.com or 768-8391.